1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the allocation of Multipoint Control Unit (MCU) ports or media server port resources for conferencing or other multipoint applications including audio teleconferencing and video conferencing that require the use of scarce MCU ports or other resources.
2. Statement of the Problem
Current state of the art multipoint conferencing applications or systems require advance knowledge of conferencing events so that scarce port resources can be allocated or reserved for the use of that event. Many applications or systems require that the user actively reserve a certain number of ports for a specific duration at a specific time. For example, setting up a conference call for twelve participants at 3:00 p.m. on Friday. Other, more advanced, applications or systems allow for ad-hoc, or unreserved, events to occur on a capacity-permitting basis, but even these applications or systems allocate a fixed number of port resources to the event for the entire duration of the event. For example, a call-in conference with an expected fifty participants at 3:00 p.m. on Friday. In both cases, this fixed number of port resources is nearly always greater than the number of ports that will actually be utilized in the event.
This conventional practice leads conferencing service providers to overbook their port capacity (sometimes dramatically) in order to accommodate the reservation of ports for the exclusive use of a particular event, where many of the reserved ports will not in fact be utilized by that event. “Overbooking” ports may result in a 50% or greater port utilization inefficiency during peak usage periods. This inefficiency dramatically increases the cost of offering multipoint services because it requires an excess of both expensive hardware capacity and expensive telephony or other network termination to that hardware.
A need exists to more efficiently utilize MCU ports for media server port resources for conferencing or other multipoint applications especially during peak usage periods. A need exists to more efficiently utilize expensive hardware capacity, telephony, and other network termination hardware. A system is needed to provide look-ahead allocation of resources based on what is likely to be needed in the future for a conferencing event. Such allocation should be adjusted over time with no prior knowledge of the event. A need also exists for such an allocation to use self-tuning statistics, to provide a configurable allocation, and configurable event start parameters.